In practice, particularly in the food industry, feeding devices are employed in picker lines. The feeding device comprises a conveyor belt which is functionally disposed between a cutting device and a picker. From the cutting device, a cut product can be transferred to the conveyor belt of the feeding device which transports the product to the picker. The latter picks up the product and transfers it to a downstream packaging machine.
The cutting device can cut, for example, cheese, sausage or meat. The slices produced from a loaf of cheese, a caliber of sausage or a portion of meat are transferred to the conveyor belt of the feeding device as a group of, for example, ten slices. The slices of the group are transported one after the other away from the cutting device by the feeding device at short distances.
The problem is that, following one group of products, for a certain time no more products are transferred to the feeding device because first a new caliber of cheese, sausage, meat or the like must be inserted into the cutting device for cutting.
As a consequence, the picker can only accept the products from the feeding device at intervals, while it is standing still between the intervals and must wait for a following group. The standstill periods of the picker and a downstream deep-drawing packaging machine resulting from it increase manufacturing costs.